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A Painter's Moods 



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Cf^OWWlNSHlELli. 



A PAINTER'S MOODS 

BY 
FREDERIC CROWNINSHIELD 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 




NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 



Copyright, igo2, by 
DoDD, Mead ©" Company 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

First Edition published September, 1902 






THTlf^RARV OF 
CONGRESS, 

Tmw3 Cowbs Recwved 

AUG. 15 190? 

COP«IOHT CMT«V 

Cll.^,c^ . / -r. IC^^ 1- 

CLASS 0-XXo. Wo. 

3. (^ L If >r 

COPY B. 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



r CONTENTS 

»\ 

^ SONNETS 

Page 

Cor Pictoris 3 

Raphael 4 

Beyond I 5 

II 6 

To Poesy 7 

Patronage I 8 

n 9 

III 10 

IV II 

V 12 

VI 13 

In Memoriam, F. W. C, I 14 

n : 15 

Apologia I 16 

II ....... 17 

Birds! 18 

Unselfishness , . 19 



Page 

The Borgia Apartments, Vatican 20 

Alleviation I 21 

II 22 

The Napoleonic Cult 23 

Party Slavery 24 

Sleeplessness 25 

In the Villa Borghese 26 

At Evensong 27 

To Byron 28 

Found! . , , . 29 

The Artist's Need *..,.. 30 

Paolo and Francesca — A Variant 31 

To an Actress !...»... 32 

II • 33 

To some Authors and Playwrights 34 

Policy ................ 35 

"The Nebular Hypothesis" (To E. S. H.) . . 36 

In a Sanctuary 37 

This April Day ............ 38 



VI 



Page 

To THE Tragic Muse . 39 

The Power of Scenery 40 

To A Holy Family I 41 

II 42 

in 43 

Nor Time, nor Space 44 

In Raphael's Loggie I 45 

II 46 

To a Drawing by Ingres 47 

On an Antique Cross . 48 

On the Avenue 49 

August on the Roman Campagna 50 

The Finer Vision 51 

At the Opera 52 

To A Critical Friend 53 

At Sunrise 54 

Hokousai-Buonarroti I 55 

II 56 

To A Sarcophagus, " The Mourners " . . . . 57 



Vll 



Page 

Senectutis Carmen 58 

" Not to Admire or Desire '* 59 

When Bleak Winds Blow 60 

Ah, What a Song! 61 

Similitudes 62 

To A Spirit 63 

Sources of Knowledge — an Invocation I . . . 64 

II. . . 65 

To Damon 66 

Enforced Inaction I 67 

II 68 

The Italian Tongue 69 

To A Child 70 

Reminiscent 71 

To Berenice I 72 

n 73 

in 74 

IV 75 

V . . . 76 



vm 



Page 

Kindness I A Question of Casuistry 77 

II The Sowing 78 

III The Reaping 79 

An Episode (To E. T.) 80 

To Four Angora Cats 81 

To A Cartoon 82 

Convincing Homilies 83 

Silence 84 

Patience, ye Fragile Ones ! 85 

To Art Students I 86 

II 87 

Anglo-Saxon Domination 88 

Memorial Dav 89 

Early Christian Mosaics 90 

Raphaelites and Preraphaelites 91 

A Cold June Day 92 

On the Pier, New York. I 93 

n 94 

in 95 



17C 



Page 
On the Pier — Continued 

On the Pier, New York IV 96 

V 97 

Finis Coronat Opus 98 

Welcome Tears 99 

On Reading the Browning Letters (i 845-1846) 100 

Aspiration loi 

To Some Historians of Art 102 

For Terseness 103 

After-Storm 104 

To a Greek Temple I 105 

II 106 

III 107 

Nature's Charm 108 

Vox PopuLi 109 

Stint not thy Praise no 

Farewells I in 

II 112 

HI 113 



Page 
Farewells — Continued 

Farewells IV . 114 

V 115 

VI 116 

VII 117 



LTRICS 

Evening Chimes 121 

May-Day Afternoon, Stockbridge 125 

Expressions — a Song 127 

Fate 129 

Prematurity 132 

Breezes 136 

To One Afar 137 

A Truant 138 

coute que coute i4o 

In Harassed Days 142 

Color Schemes 145 



XI 



Page 

Tuneful Sadness 146 

Ode — Thy Light, O Lord! 147 

Farewell, Autumn ! 158 



XII 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Birds ! Frontispiece 

** Aye, out it crops, the primal thirst to kill " 

To AN Actress i8 - 

«* What may thy story be ? I am not sure " 
To A Holy Family 38 ^ 

*< In every realm there is a Bethlehem " 

August on the Roman Campagna 50 ^ 

** Where blood-red poppies bloom upon a mass 
of woe" 

Similitudes 78 ' 

" Not so unlike the young year and the old ' ' 

To a Cartoon 98 "^ 

"Sheathe thy keen sword, and lift the olive pale" 

Aspiration 116 

*' Ye spell me, O ye tree-tops, thrusting high" 

Farewells VII 138 

'* Not when the bier descends into the grave " 



Xlll 



SONNETS 



COR PICTORIS 

Heart, thou hast throbbed with pulse of modest 
Spring, 
When first she feels the touch of love-warm air. 
And mantles with a dainty toss her fair. 
Sweet self in pale-green folds, white-flowered, that 
cling 

To flexile forms. And thou hast beat with ring 
Sonorous of free Summer's songs that ne'er 
Surcease, nor day nor night. And with the flare 
Of Autumn's fiery hues — who dares to fling 

Her challenge to the pride of sunset skies — 
Thou, too, hast flamed ; and yet hast quiet lain 
Likewastes of sparkling snows 'neath stillest stars. 

To these thy moods, O Heart, perchance replies 
Some nameless kindred heart — one that would fain 
Love thee unknown — aye, for thy very scars. 



RAPHAEL 

Hundreds have writ of thee, fair Raphael, 

From kindly Giorgio to the men who scorn 

All kindliness, and would have coldly shorn 

Thee of thy crown. But thou didst soft compel 
Allegiance by thine overpowering spell. 

Ah, not a leaf from thee would I have torn ! 

Thou art to me the ripening, pearly morn ; 

Thou art the flawless flower of flowers that dwell 
On Spring-time swards ; thou art the perfect song 

Of songs, immeasurably pure and sweet ; 

And thou art gladly young, as blossoms are ; 
And grandly placid as the gods so strong. 

So calm ; and beautiful as Loves that meet 

At eventide to hail the bridal star ! 



BEYOND 



These craggy heights, that sharp indent the sky, 
Fuming with pearly mists, arouse in me 
A deep desire to solve the mystery 
Of what doth stretch beyond their summits high. 

And though I know that they inertly lie 

Leagues inland, yet I feel that there must be 
Therefrom a view of the unaspiring sea — 
A heavenly greeting to the burdened eye. 

Ah, the Beyond ! When we shall gasping stand 
Expectant on the crestings ultimate, 

What shall we see ? another heaving land ? 
Deep, gloomy pits, and peaks co-elevate 

With cirrus-swirls ? or a far-reaching strand, 
And the vast level main impassionate .'' 



BEYOND 

II 

And yet the doubtful issue bars us not 

From the upstrain : for though we surely knew 
That scabrous crags beyond would meet our view. 
Standing at last upon the stress-won spot; 

Still should we strive, and freely cast our lot 
With fainting fellow-man, and helpful hew 
A path for him among the thorns, and strew 
It o'er with heart's-ease, laurel, and with what 

Might soothe or stimulate. Oh yes, dear God, 
Thou hast implanted in us germs that make 

Us rise — as yon fair lilies from a clod 
Arise immaculate — and for the sake 

Of thy created ones, incessant plod 

Until we spotless 'fore thy throne awake ! 



TO POESY 

My Love, whene'er my heart is desolate, 
And soughing airs do echo their sad tale 
From wall to wall through hollowness, I hail 
Thy soothing presence. Faster than thy mate. 

Thy sister Muse — who in concreter state 

More obviously doth shine — with bonds less frail 
Thou chain'st my erring mind, and dost regale 
It with kind eyes and words compassionate. 

I thank thee. Love : nor would I ask for more. 
Not e'en a berry from thy crown of bay. 
Much less to soar with thee to sanctioned skies. 

If ever and anon thou wilt stand o'er 
Me as I lie song-burdened, and soft lay 
On mine thy lilied hand -^ it will suffice. 



PATRONAGE 



The sapient sagely say that Art can thrive 
Alone when fostered by a Caesar's care ; 
That the eternal tree can only bear 
Full fruitage when imperial wills contrive 

With genius. What ! when iron trammels gyve 
The craftsman's reach, and throne-lust curds the air 
He hardly breathes with throttled, mute despair. 
Then only can he flash a stroke alive 

With soul-intent ? Nay, clear-tongued History proves 
That free-communities in harvests score 

The vantage; and as art undying moves 
Adown the aeons, garnering generous store 

Of master-works in turn of despot days. 

Yet even more she reaps when Freedom sways. 



PATRONAGE 
II 

Noble the ruins that still marge the Nile — 
The slave-heaped masses that commemorate 
Dead dynasties ; yet aye illuminate 
Their vanities ! This cyclopean file 

Of lotus-crowned shafts, that cumbrous pile 
Pyramidal, deep-founded, desolate 
Upon an Empire's sands, still animate 
The fancy, and reveal what state erstwhile 

A princely Pharaoh held. Impressive power ! 
And yet upon the rock that sweeps the seas 
Beyond the olive-groves, there still doth gleam 

The record of a free-helmed state — the flower 
Of Art. I ctinus, Phidias, Pericles ! 
Names that were then, names that are now supreme 



PATRONAGE 

III 

The microscopic state (mere miniature 
Of democratic Rome, the type) did wed 
With Art, and the gigantic issue spread 
O'er Europe's face, and now the world doth lure 

With fantasy and craft — so passing pure 
And lovable ! And fair it mantled, fed 
On Liberty and Pride, till hands blood-red. 
Imperial, sateless, did for fear immure 

It in subserviency ; whereon it grew 
Corrupted by a restless palace-pomp. 
And churchly garishness — a braggart thing ! 

But in the freer days it fell like dew 

From dawn's chaste sky when not a breath doth romp 
From stormy lairs, and early birds soft sing. 



10 



PATRONAGE 

IV 

Perchance I strike too strenuous a note 
On ranging Liberty's wide-compassed lute 
Impatient of control, perchance impute 
An undue bane to tyranny, nor quote 

Benignant instances, and overgloat 

On sweet free-will, or blindly persecute 

The persecutor. After all, to fruit 

The tree doth need the care that would promote 

Its fruitfulness, and husbandry to give 
It pregnant days. A nerving patronage 
Is breath of life to Art; Empire, Free-State, 

And Church through patronage have made it live. 
And left from orient dawn rich heritage 
To the world's noon. Shall I discriminate ? 



II 



PATRONAGE 



But yet, but yet instinctively I feel 

That Liberty doth give the broader scope 
The while she fosters, and doth wider ope 
Art's perfumed petals. As She doth appeal 

To Country's love, so Despots show their zeal 
In Vanity, their narrower selfish hope 
For Dynasty, that makes the artist grope, 
A sycophant. Howe'er, they could not deal — 

These great ones — with the greater heritors 
Of Tuscany' s free art, except as peers ; 
Since well they knew that genius no control 

Would brook which curbs. Nor Prince, nor Emperors, 
Nor sovereign Popes with wheedlings, threats, or 

sneers 
Could crush their high indomitable Soul ! 



12 



PATRONAGE 

VI 

And who shall say beneath thy fostering care, 
O great Republic — greater yet to be — 
The coryphseus of the chorus free 
Of vital, philanthropic States that share 

Thy privilege, and hope of those that wear 
The yoke — O who shall say to what degree 
Of splendor *neath thy care we may not see 
Art soar ? Thy lot it may be to compare 

With Egypt, Greece, or Rome in all their blaze 
Triumphant — yea to better them — a feast 
For chastened taste and beauty-craving eyes. 

If Thou dost will it so. For if in craze 

Of gain Thou flamest — garish Mammon's priest- 
It may be thine the world to vulgarize. 



13 



IN MEMORIAM, F. W. C. 

[i 843-1 866. Wounded at Winchester, Antietam, Gettysburg, and in 
the Atlanta Campaign ; died at Albano, Italy.] 



My Brother, through a cloud-break in the years 
Dark-spreading ; through the rack of stormy fray, 
I see thee in thy blue, boyish and gay, 
As though thy playmates were thy girl compeers. 

Not the swift red-flecked brood, the charioteers 

Of Death — war's Living soul. And thou didst play 
With these, alas, most fearfully ! One day — 
When bugles called no more, when victors' cheers 

Long since had echoing died — thy captain told 
Me that in agony of sore retreat 
He turned, and saw thee infinitely brave. 

Hurling thy challenge to the foe fivefold 

And flushed — then fall. Yet was this untrumped 

feat 
But one of many ere thou found'st thy grave. 



14 



IN MEMORIAM 
II 

How oft It is that in some gracile frame 
A lion's heart doth find its native lair ; 
That downy cheeks, and skin as smoothly fair 
As Cupid's own, in prowest deeds do shame 

Some Hercules hirsute, or pluck the fame 

From brawny athletes' weathered brows, whene'er 
A holy, righteous Cause doth wildly flare 
From peak to answering peak its danger-flame. 

So wert thou hearted, brother rose and white, 
A paladin caparisoned with flowers. 
Supremely brave when, in the gathering hours. 

War-smitten thou wert laid afar among 

Soft hills, and saidst — while tears obscured my 

sight — 
" I 'm not afraid to die, although too young." 



15 



APOLOGIA 



Weigh me not, friends, as though I wrote in prose 
Oracularly, nor my judgment blame, 
If with a fiery utterance I inflame 
My speech at times, till seeming it oppose 

The truth : for History teaches that truth owes 
Its final triumph, not to measured, tame. 
And temperate phrase, but as the bards proclaim 
It on their burning lyres until it grows 

Imperious. Thus the artist dominates. 
He looks upon the maple's golden sheaf. 
Flamboyant on the autumn's vaulted blue. 

Supremely deep, and then exaggerates 

His color-terms — intense beyond belief — 
Till these false notes seem truer than the tme. 



i6 



APOLOGIA 
II 

Nor would I that ye always hold me true 
To lofty aims ; for I am often slave 
To the swift moment's mood — now gay, now grave- 
To some sweet dream as passing as the dew 

That pearls the white-necked dawn, whene'er anew 
The flushing sun diurnally doth pave 
His flaming way with gold. Or I may rave 
To-day o'er what to-morrow I may view 

Unmoved. The sadness of a mourning sky 
I praise, because it concords with a heart 
Of tears. Anon the fleckless blue above 

I laud to equal height, and glorify 

In song. Or when I heed with what sure art 
Fair Julia queens — I swear 't is she I love. 



17 



BIRDS! 

Aye, out it crops the primal thirst to kill ! 
And life-lust quickens in thy cruel eye — 
The lust to slay some feathered ecstasy. 
Some sailing gorgeousness, more vivid still 

Than intertissued miracle of skill 

By weaver's hand. And thou wilt give the lie 
In manhood to our prized philanthropy 
Sown in thy barren heart. For thou wilt thrill 

To blood like beast, and wilt imbruted yearn 
To slay some larger thing that yields to sight 
More copious spectacle of pain and gore. 

And then thy jaded appetite will burn 
To flesh its sword in fierce, unholy fight 
With fellow man. O Christ, where is thy lore ? 



i8 



yjftti'ifr:--: 



To an Actress 

"What may thy story be ? I am not svire " 



See Page ^z 




UNSELFISHNESS 

Let me not over-muse on my own soul. 

Nor whether this, or that, would much abate 

Or raise its guerdon in a future state. 

Or e'en in this. But let its beaconed goal 

Be others' betterment : and let its whole 
Unselfish striving be to elevate 
Some spirit prone to heights commensurate 
With my high zeal ; and let it fast enroll 

Among the inspired those who await the spark 
To kindle into flame potential power. 
And when my setting star doth blanch the thinned. 

Faint moments of my life, if then I mark 

A single soul that through my sin doth flower, 
Then let me gasp, " I 'm glad that I have sinned." 



19 



THE BORGIA APARTMENTS, VATICAN 

If splendor charm, then turn bewildered eyes 
Upon the groined vault and rich lunette. 
Where Pinturicchio hotly pressed did let 
His fancy riot run, and did devise 

Unheard-of splendors, potent to surprise 
Even a Borgia's dream. And here he set 
The cruel Spanish bull ; there inlaced fret. 
Framing dense-peopled scenes ; here studded skies 

With gilded boss ; and there with deft-feigned form 
He mixed relief to magnify the glow. 
Caring but little for the glareless chaste. 

Nor spared he costly blue, nor gold, nor warm. 
Ensanguined tints, nor palette's utmost show 
To gratify a pontifFs savage taste. 



20 



ALLEVIATION 



Unnerved I lie upon the Eastern shore. 

And contemplate the dazzling rain-bowed gleam 
From stranded life sun-generate — mere dream 
Of summer seas — and lagging waves that pour 

Upon the rocks emporphyrized before 

A coaxing breeze, and note the briny cream 
That curdles up the sands, the streaming steam 
From eager launch, the sails, and feathered oar. 

And it suffices me to gaze and think : 

For in my earliest years I ne'er did aught 
But play upon this soothing ocean rim 

Grief-free, not having neared my manhood's brink, 
Nor felt things deeply, nor a sad note caught 
From the world's dirge, nor lipped life's acrid brim. 



21 



ALLEVIATION 
II 

And all the more I love to gaze, and scent 
The fresh salt waves, in that a bitter air 
Rolls down from verdured hills far inland, where 
Harsh, festering ills have tainted it, though blent 

With joy — yes, a poor starveling joy — that 's meant 
To lengthen torture : for our flesh can bear 
But modicum of woe, and arch despair 
Might break the heart before its force be spent. 

Oh, strange it is that virid mountain lawns 
Tracing with azure shades the comely trees ; 
That renovating sweets distilled from heaven — 

Glinting with earliest cheer, when welcome dawns 
The radiance soaring from far orient seas — 
The mass of sanest Life with gall should leaven. 



22 



THE NAPOLEONIC CULT 

Not the imperial ermine that he wore. 
Nor royal bees, nor gleaming eagles won 
By genius, flashing like a strong young sun 
Fresh born of night in splendent upward soar 

From rugged hearthstone to a piled-up score 

Of sumptuous thrones ; not Caesar's deeds outdone. 
Nor Philip's son's, nor miracles that stun 
The sense, nor halo of the conqueror 

Alone enthrall — though these in part do fire 
The soul. But chiefly, O Republic's child. 
That thou, a parvenu, didst ring the knell 

Of Right Divine, and that thou mad'st a pyre 
Of Privilege. Yet when thy star beguiled 
Thee to play despot — then the curtain fell. 



23 



PARTY SLAVERY 

Oh hard it is to feel the crushing strain 
Of party-law, when one would consecrate 
His whitest flame to the beloved State 
That rears. Oh hard it is to bear the pain 

Of silent exile ; to be thrust amain 

From council-halls where men deliberate — 
Settling with " aye " or " no " a nation's fate — 
Because of cleanest heart and clearest brain. 

Could but ideals' expression calmly flow 

Through unchoked channels into the great sea 
Of public turbulence, as yonder stream 

Untrammeled lapses limpidly and slow 
Into the pool that greets its clarity — 
Then might a freeman serve the State, I deem. 



24 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

I ROSE and saw the pallid, crescent light 
Of clear, cold dawn behind the massive hill 
Tracing the sable, crest-torn pines, while still 
Upon the hither slopes soft lay the night. 

And then too well I knew that with a might — 
Puissant and adequate — crag, vale, and rill 
Their cyclopean toils would soon fulfill. 
Refreshed by sleep, when she should take her flight. 

But I whom she unkind had courted not? 
Should I be equal to the daily task ? 
Or must I self to minor deed condemn ? 

Must half-achievement be my lesser lot ? 

Then pale dawn breathed, as I these things did ask, 
" God gave to thee a willy but not to them." 



25 



IN THE VILLA BORGHESE 

O SPRING-TIME lawns, and cleaving daisies gay, 
How brave ye interlace your fret altern 
Of green and rose around the ilex stern ! 
And with what nonchalance ye blithe inlay 

Mosaics 'neath majestic pines ; or play 
Around some marble god, or mossy urn. 
Or venerable shrine ! Of what concern 
To you these eerie groves wherein may stray 

The virgin goddess of some sacred pool 

Bedimmed with shadows of austerest green ? 
But yet we could not spare your lively hue 

On this dark tapestry, low-toned and cool. 
No more than in a life of cloudy mien. 
Could we forego the vivid bursts of blue. 



26 



AT EVENSONG 

Emotionless, from off the squalid street 
I walk into the mystic atmosphere 
Tinctured with incense ; while from pier to pier 
Roll the great waves of song divinely sweet, 

Pulsing upon the ear like tuneful beat 

Of squadroned Seraphs* wings upon the clear. 
Blue air of heaven. Beatified I hear 
Anthems and surging antiphons that meet 

Aloft the trembling groins ; and what is best, 
No hortatory voice to heed the wrong 
There is in me — well known. Whether these rites 

Be hindrance to the aspiring soul, or zest, 
I cannot say. Yet at this evensong 
They raised my prostrate heart to thrilling heights ! 



27 



TO BYRON 

Those who are kind to us in harassed hour 
And in our sorest need give sympathy — 
With whom it is, indeed, heart' s-ease to be — 
We love. Thou often dost reveal that power, 

Sad Bard, when tearful, ruthless clouds dark lower. 
Oh, would that I might lute in turn to thee 
My thanks, and tune my lay so luringly 
That even thou mightst hear, O pale, wild flower 

Of the ungoverned sea, which thou didst hymn 
So true. No wonder ! for thine eloquence 
Is as resistless as the billow born 

Of Arctic gales ; and thy more playful whim 
As sparkling, too. And thou for continence 
In utterance, dost show a kindred scorn. 



28 



FOUND ! 

What bitterness to seek what most we crave. 
And not to find it ! Tired, we cannot tire 
The demon of Unrest, nor pale Desire, 
Nor haggard, endless Quest ! However brave 

We seem and full of Hope, her empty grave 
Yawns obvious. Ceaseless, ceaseless we inquire 
For our heart's dearest love, although the fire 
That beacons us grows faint, and that which gave 

Us once a heavenly happiness would seem 
Forever lost. But yet no ecstasy 
Can equal that, when, in such desperate strait. 

There sudden rifts our night like cloud-burst gleam 
The yearned-for vision, and in our wild, free 
Arms we reap it ! Oh joy insatiate ! 



29 



THE ARTIST'S NEED 

Not unconsidered praise the artist needs 
His golden minims from the grosser ore 
To liberate. Such praise should be no more 
To him than the unobtrusive air he heeds 

Not as he breathes ; for flattery impedes 

The preening of his plumes on which must soar 
His chaffless, winnowed thoughts, if he would score 
A victory with unephemeral deeds. 

Not myriad, mimicked plaudits, but at least 
One true believer, one who has the cult. 
One bigot in the faith, one worshipper 

Devoutly bowed expectant towards the East 
To hail his rising Flame, and to exult 
Thereon — a solitary minister ! 



30 



PAOLO AND FRANCESCA — A VARIANT 

When to thine eyes I glanced from off the book, 
And there perceived the balanced, crystal tear. 
That welled from inmost sources purling near 
To the heart's holiest shrine, and saw thy look 

In perfect concord with the tale that shook 
The chords of Life pulsating with sincere 
Compassion ; then, my Love, thou didst appear 
My dream's ideal. For I no more mistook 

A native, meet reserve for lack of heart. 
And I, all heedless, should have cast aside 
The tome, and kissed away the tears that shone 

Like stars, holding thee fast, and without art 
Told my own tale, and said, " Wilt thou abide 
With me for aye, dear Love ? " — But I read on. 



31 



TO AN ACTRESS 



What may thy story be ? I am not sure ; 
Expressions lie, and often craft conceals 
The character. To me thy mask reveals 
A drama's scar, the garnered joys that lure 

To bitter aftermath ; thy lips, so pure, 
Bespeak capacities for mirth that heals 
All pain, capacities for pain that steals 
All mirth ; thine eyes, to him who wins, secure 

Felicities undreamed, but yet declare 
Felicities entombed ; and thy low brow. 
Tressed like the dusk, blends not the even light 

And shade of sanctioned life — alas, its fair. 
Young flesh is modeled by the furious plough 
Of unleashed passion in its costly flight. 



32 



TO AN ACTRESS 



II 



Else how couldst thou attune us to thy mood. 
And make us shed corroborative tear, 
And force reluctant echo to thy clear. 
Contagious laugh — us, who in solitude 

Have wept and laughed alternately, imbrued 
With misery or joy ? Thou couldst not sear 
The tempered heart, nor draw sweet tones of cheer 
From o'er-touched chords, unless in lessons rude 

Thou hadst fulfilled thy fruitful schooling-time. 

Untried, thou mightst deceive some fledgling youth 
Perchance — not us. Only the shadowed eye. 

And furrowed brow ; only the note sublime 
Of suffering, and convincing ring of truth 
Can the sore-travailed spirit satisfy. 



33 



TO SOME AUTHORS AND 
PLAYWRIGHTS 

For Art's sake decency ! Oh chastely draw 
The veil o'er acts unnamable and scenes 
Which Nature in discrimination screens 
With pall impenetrable. Let your law 

Be Beauty — Beauty without fleck, or flaw — 
That never by the least suggestion weans 
From health — that o'er the spreading darkness 

sheens, 
Like welcome stars o'er dusky deeps that awe. 

Think you the Spartan plan to emphasize 
The loathsomeness of vice, by coarse display 
Intemperate, the sanest mode to make 

A youth vice-proof? Why not the lesson wise. 
And stern rebuke in Christ's own sweeter way ? 
Or love ye filth for very dollars' sake ? 



34 



POLICY 

Look at that straining, pliant, white-limbed tree. 
At odds with furious, plunging, western gales, 
Swinging to leeward ! How it dips, and quails. 
And yields ! To leeward in conformity 

With prudence : ne'er to windward with a free. 
Bold thrust ! Always upright when calm prevails. 
When tawny skies have passed, and opal sails 
Are spread on heaven's tranquil, sighless sea ! 

And there are those who drift along the tide. 
Who bow to vogue, who cringe to stronger will. 
And raise the voice in concord with the shout 

That dominates. Such men serene abide 

And prosper ; while they sink who reckless thrill 
To storm, who dare recalcitrant to doubt. 



35 



"THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS" 

(to e. s. h.) 

Your graphic tale of this world's earliest stage 
Was tempered with but one supreme regret, 
That the deep-pealing voice of him had set 
In silence, who transcribed on peerless page 

The flagrant pit, where those who flung their gage 
To preordained defeat, and did abet 
The God-contemning one, were sore beset 
By all the fiery fury that his age 

Could conjure then. But had he only known 
What we know now — the transcendental state 
Of awfulness — could he have eyeless seen 

The molten rain, the rack metallic blown 
By sundering gales, and tides inordinate ; 
Oh what a fearful Hell his would have been ! 



36 



IN A SANCTUARY 

Sternly the saints looked down from dome of gold. 
Which echoed and re-echoed the rich glow 
From lights, wherein the artisan did sow 
His sapphire seeds amain. From the nave's cold. 

Aerial vault, deep blue, the manifold. 
Reverberating stars shone mute. Below, 
The shadowy aisles ; beyond, the sombre show 
Of metaled apse, where onyx shafts uphold 

The glinting baldachin. While dreaming here 
Soft dreams of boundless things, I did perceive 

Two souls oblivious next a massive pier. 
Ardent the one, as he to her did weave 

His fiery tale — of what ? — I could not guess, 
Whether foul crime, or crowned happiness. 



37 



THIS APRIL DAY 

The restless wintry gales have whirled away — 
And yet they brought a calmness to my soul, 
And through their wilder tumult did control 
Its turbulence. But on this April day — 

When broad white rivers beamily do stray 

Through vales ; when pools quiescent and the whole 
Earth's face in glorious sheen do skyward roll 
Their radiancy, and light with light repay — 

On this glad April day, do thou, O Sun, 

Shine with thy fruitful springtime flame on me. 
Then like the quiet pools that glassy mate 

Thy image, and the rivers white that run 

Through vales, and the bright glebe that answers 

thee, 
I, too, transplendent beams will radiate. 



38 



To a Holy Family 

In every realm there is a Bethlehem 



See Page 41 



TO THE TRAGIC MUSE 

Thou touchedst me heart-deep, Melpomene, 
Last eve ; for when the timely curtain fell 
Upon the twain, to fields of asphodel 
I would have followed hence, that I might be 

With them among the shades, and hold a free, 
Sweet parle, and bide awhile. Alas, thy spell 
Was rudely broken by the tearless swell 
Of shrill applause from that vast human sea, 

Shouting to indecorous, smirking life 
Before the garish lights the gentle dead. 
But when in wakeful hours I was alone. 

And the thick air of sable night was rife 

With phantoms hurtling round my throbbing head, 
I made that sombre tragedy my own. 



39 



THE POWER OF SCENERY 

Gray, striate clouds are streaming o'er the sky, 
And through the slanting, blurring sheets of rain 
I see those sun-burned golden towers twain 
That thrust their ochred masses far on high 

Into purpureal blue. Beneath them lie 
The countless, monumental steps of Spain, 
Where congregate the models who would chain 
Some artist's gaze, though not unloath to vie 

With lizards in their basking. Yet some say 
" All scenery 's but an adjunct " ; but to me 
Who ply the painter's craft such dreams do fill 

My heart with happiness as real, as may 
An eye of heaven's hue, or an ecstasy 
Of golden hair, or low-voiced words that thrill. 



40 



TO A HOLY FAMILY 



In every realm there is a Bethlehem, 

Where men are born who imitate the Lord 
Inimitable, who unknown have scored 
Their sacrifice on bettered Life. To them 

No manifold applause, nor diadem 

To crown the modest deed, nor rich reward, 
Save cheering conscience and the sweet accord 
Of praises from the few — most precious gem ! 

Not only on Levantine shores the Guide, 

But where the tropics spread their broadest shade. 
And where the sombre pine-tree flecks the wild. 

And where the olive ramps the mountain-side 
In that fair land, whose master hands portrayed 
The chastest Mother and divinest Child. 



41 



TO A HOLY FAMILY 

II 

Sweet influence of gentle Motherhood, 
Thou haloest with joy the Life begun, 
And smilest comfort when its little sun 
Is veiled by clouds as yet not understood. 

And Character, thou teachest that which should 
Be taught unflinching, if the race to run 
Prove fruitful, if the things to do be done 
Aright, if years be coronate with good. 

Ah, thus we dreaming artists love to see 
The incipience of the sanctified career; 
To fancy that beneath a smile sublime. 

Trained by a hand of fond austerity. 

The perfect man is grown. And yet we hear 
Of prophets reared midst negligence and crime 



42 



TO A HOLY FAMILY 

III 

O'er all our loves — aye, even love of gold 

Which dureth when the craze of sex is spent — 
The mother's for her son is prevalent. 
Alone disinterested ! Ah, behold 

The rest ! Like autumn leaflets, aureoled 
With fleeting flames and every blandishment 
Of hue, they whirl with airs incontinent 
To sereness — from magnificence to mold ! 

Thrice blessed Church, which aptly didst inspire 
This lovely cult that resurrects the heart 
Dead in the bitterness of wanton love ; 

That recreates belief; that still doth fire 
The hand to trace with its diviner art 
This nearest thing on Earth to things Above ! 



43 



NOR TIME, NOR SPACE 

Had ageless Time, the healer, questioned then, 
I should have answered in sincerity, 
" O Time, kind Time, I am completely free 
From grievous heart-throes, and once more 'mong 
men 

I hold my usual way, and am again 

My sanest self." Had in her clemency 

Wide Space her soft inquiries made of me> 

I should have said, " O Space, 't is now as when 

I was heart-whole." But suddenly, one day, 
I bent my hapless, inadvertent view 
Upon a radiant face, so like to one 

That wasy my startled blood ran ashen-gray ! 
And then, O Time, O Space, too well I knew 
That all your work remedial was undone. 



44 



IN RAPHAEL'S LOGGIE 



When Spring, the Siren, stills the balsamed air, 
I love to wander through the long arcade, 
And turn alternate gaze from hues that fade 
To everlasting hues upon the fair. 

Far Alban hills that gracious cool the glare 

Trembling above old Rome, which brooks no shade 
In noon-time's blaze. Never in such a glade 
Did Adam walk with Eve. Pilasters bear 

The curving arch in repetition sweet 

Adown the flowered aisle. Soffit, and wall. 

And vault burst into harmonies replete 
With gayeties, while low reliefs enthrall. 

Picture, and fret, and floriate scroll impart 

The Law — Freedom controlled — the perfect Art. 



45 



IN RAPHAEL'S LOGGIE 

II 

Had Raphael lived his three-score years and ten. 
Armed with Art's peaceful weapons cap-a-pie ! 
With nature sweet as Love ; with gift to see 
Things in their rarest semblances and then 

Portray them in such wise that after men 
For generations hold them types ; with free. 
Expanding sympathies for each degree 
Of art — oh had he only lived ! But when 

In latter years he turned his chiefest mood 
From easel-work, and as an Architect 
The three great crafts most deftly unified ; 

And when he just commenced what would have stood 
The ages' praise, all potent to erect. 
To color, and to carve — Ah, then he died ! 



46 



TO A DRAWING BY INGRES 

Thy fame we cannot always comprehend. 

Knowing thee not. For naught could violate 

That vision which thy peers did captivate. 

Nor thine unyielding line — that would not bend 

To easeful play, nor would in conscience lend 
Itself to mode. And yet thine art so great. 
Doth not on corniced canvas fascinate, 
But on the penciled sheets, that thou didst vend 

For bed and board — and we now thank thy need. 
Whilst I am versing, lovingly I gaze 
Upon thy drawing, pure as an antique. 

To which it may not abdicate its meed. 

And I should say — nor do I overpraise — 
'T were worthy Raphael, or the chastest Greek. 



47 



ON AN ANTIQUE CROSS 

*' Glesu e Maria, a vi dono el cuore e T anima mia." 

" Jesus and Mary, all my heart and soul 
I give to you." This legend reverent 
Was chiseled on a low-priced ornament — 
An antique brazen cross — I bought where roll 

Thick, tawny waves. Ah, here is writ the whole 
Wild story of a thirst incontinent. 
The outburst of an ecstasy long pent. 
Craving the chaste, celestial aureole. 

O holy Love ! O Love immaculate ! 

Thou must erstwhile have sprung from earthly 

source ! 
The lips that voiced thee must have felt the kiss 

Supreme ! Or, if they never found their mate ; 
Or, if they never felt fierce passion's force. 
Then what unproved capacity for bliss ! 



48 



ON THE AVENUE 

Who dwells within that opulent abode 

Ornate with lush " cartouche " in Gallic style ? 
And who within that massive-corniced pile — 
Of school that from chaste Brunelleschi flowed 

Into more florid fields? In such a mode 
Must live the lights eflfulgent who compile 
Our history, or the stars who do beguile 
Us with their songs. Oh, no ! the antipode 

Of lights and stars ! philistine Pluto lives 
Within — not in a hell disconsolate. 
But with dear Beauty for his lustrous mate. 

No shrieks Proserpina permissive gives 
As he doth hale her to a gilded state ! 
No Ceres weeps at the Hadean gate ! 



49 



AUGUST ON THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 

Some sparkling morn before the August rays 

Have touched their fierce extreme of midday heat, 
From Alban hills descend the white-paved street 
Trending to Rome, into the plain ablaze 

With withering beams. Then backward turn thy gaze 
Upon the fair-limned hazy heights, and meet 
The flood of opalescence from a sweet, 
Young sky, that laves far crests, and nearer plays 

Around the yellow-flowering weeds and grass, 
Tinctured burnt-red, and brittle thistles brown, 
Sere as the blasted empire's awful might 

Engulfed in that vast, arid, arch-spanned down. 
Where blood-fed poppies bloom upon a mass 
Of woe — yet gorgeous in the morning light ! 



50 



August on the Roman Campagna 

"Where biood-fed poppies bloom upon a mass 

Of woe " 

See Page 50 



^ 



THE FINER VISION 

When naught but ambient ugliness prevails ; 
When Life is lived in advertised emprise. 
With which the strenuous hope to civilize 
All that is joy to see ; my spirit quails. 

Then 'neath the close-pressed lids, there dream-like 
sails 
Into my view a glorious sight. The skies 
More sapphirine appear ; the earth replies 
In heightened verdant hues ; the sea exhales 

More amethystine tints ; and eyes I know 
Expand with ampler love, and gladlier gleam 
The sweet incentive smiles, while graces weave 

A subtler net. So Milton, in the glow 

From inward rays, saw Skies and Earth supreme. 
And Man imparadised, and peerless Eve. 



51 



AT THE OPERA 

Half only do I hear thy tuneful strain, 
O Faust, as gently with love-cadenced air 
Thou dost salute the embowered cottage, where 
Thy Marguerite, a flower o'er flowers doth reign. 

Half only do I hear the soft refrain. 

The low impassioned song between the pair. 
Delirious pair, heart-crazed, on whom the fair, 
Blanc moon doth mutely wax and silent wane. 

Half only do I hear ; for I am thralled 

By haunting words, melodious e'en as thine, 
Brave Faust, and interlace of vows as meet. 

When blossom-fragrance and the white moon called 
To tryst in distant, gardened lands divine, 
A maid as sweet as thou, dear Marguerite. 



52 



TO A CRITICAL FRIEND 

Thou chidedst me with smiles the other day, 
Because I wore some bauble that did cry 
Discordance in thy gray, fastidious eye 
With my own character, and thou didst pray 

Me quick the sinning gaud to cast away. 
Wearing a nobler thing that would belie 
Me not, and yet completely satisfy 
Thy taste. But I have dared to disobey 

Thine issued fiat, gentle arbiter. 

For still I wear the flashing frippery. 
And still do risk thy glance importunate. 

Not that I deem that thou in Art didst err ; 
But I should err to end this warranty 
Of zeal for what concerns my daily state. 



53 



AT SUNRISE 

My Maker, how I thank thee for this morn. 
This ardent morn that upward rolls its fire 
To heaven's crest, and withal to mansions higher 
Illuminates a prostrate spirit shorn 

Of light ! I thank thee for this beacon, born 
Of ebon shades, wherewith to guide desire 
To goals sublime — a splendor to inspire 
The greater, and the lesser thing to scorn ! 

And, O my Maker, hold this spiring force 
To true intent, unswerving in its flight ; 
And let there be no earthward trending sway; 

No waning afternoon ; no proneward course ; 
No sinking seaward, nor obscuring night; 
But ever upward, as this Rise of Day ! 



54 



HOKOUSAi-BUONARROTI 



Old Hokousai said that all the fruit 

From his great toil before his seventieth year 

Was not worth thought; though, should he persevere 

And live in labor till he did salute 

His eightieth birthday, he might execute 

Some fairly goodish thing : but should he clear 
His ninetieth, then all mysteries would appear 
Unveiled, outspoken, that hitherto were mute. 

And, furthermore, if he should chance to see 
His hundredth — toiling aye — he did maintain 

His skill would reach a marvelous degree. 
And could he here a decade more remain, 

A line — a point — expressed suggestively. 
Would sum the fancies of his brimming brain ! 



55 



HOKOUSAi-BUONARROTI 
II 

But Buonarroti in his mellow age 

Turned from his idol Art to the Supreme. 
Nor in his full submission did he deem 
Of moment his life's task — the parentage 

Of master-works : nor did he proudly gauge 
His craft before the Lord, nor high esteem 
His triumphs of the past, nor fondly dream 
On future crowns, nor larger appanage 

For man. He said not, boasting, " I did limn 
The Vault," " I carved Mosaic majesty," 

" I raised the mighty Dome till seraphim 

Harped round it." Nay, in all subserviency 

He did in verse his nothingness record — 

" There is no good in me without Thee, Lord." 



56 



TO A SARCOPHAGUS, "THE MOURNERS" 

(Imperial Museum, Constantinople) 

If happiness it be for those who die. 

To rest in peace within a sculptured shrine 
In taste so exquisite, and of design 
So eloquent, that he who passes by 

Thrills at the sight ; if sweet it be to lie 
Encircled by a noble guardian line 
Of fair, sad, gentle women who repine 
Immutably ; then he must testify 

To bliss who sleeps within this shapely tomb. 
Should they who in the life beloved us well. 
And spurred us to the good by swerveless trust. 

Stand kindly round us in the lasting bloom 
Of carven grace — each a dear sentinel — 
Surely the Heart would beat though it were Dust. 



57 



SENECTUTIS CARMEN 

Methought the year was at its barren end; 
That Autumn in her deepest organ tones 
Had valediction pealed ; that Nature's bones 
Unfleshed by timely travails which attend 

A fruiting opulent, would shortly blend 

Their pallor with the snows. Yet to the zones 
Of hills the sun once more his softness loans, 
And spreads incumbent shades where willows wend 

Their social way with rills, and glamor gives 
To dying Life. And can it be that I 
Who deemed the requiem sung 'fore sturdy men. 

Who paled beside the glowing thing that lives — 
Into the teeth of Dis shall thrust the lie ? 
That I with fruitful fire shall flame again ? 



58 



"NOT TO ADMIRE OR DESIRE" 

Steel thyself, O heart ! Aye, close thy port 
Turned adamant to that predestined pain. 
Harsh fruit assured, when in exalted strain 
Thou dost impregn some dream, alas too short. 

With headstrong, swift desire. Thou dost but court 
Cold death, when unadmonished thou wouldst gain 
Beatitude within fell Passion's fane 
Steel thyself, O heart ! Be not the sport 

Imperiling of every wheedling air 

That seeks to woo thy spiced flowers — to rob 
Their essence in mere play, and then to part 

With them inodorous and sere. Have care 
To close thine adamantine gates, and throb 
Indifferent ! Oh steel thyself, frail heart ! 



59 



WHEN BLEAK WINDS BLOW 

Do memories serve on such an afternoon 

As this — when sunshine seems mere specious stain 
On icy, wind-scourged streets — to ease the pain 
Of actuality ? What if I swoon 

To dream-land, and therein caressed by boon. 
Mild airs, gaze far across the violet main. 
Barred with the beryl, and descry a chain 
Of whitened towns — whiter than wintry moon 

Against the void — impearled upon the shore. 
And sight the glacis of the lava-cone 
Exhaling roseate incense to the skies ? 

Yet, is it worth the waking, to restore 

These blooming scenes, when in a chilling zone 
We are securely lodged by holiest ties ? 



60 



AH, WHAT A SONG! 

(In a Basilica) 

Make me a song as splendid as this shrine. 

Fair Muse — thy work — and let its solemn weight 

Rest on a massive row coordinate 

Of snow-white shafts, with veinings pavonine. 
Leading adown the lessening polished line 

The spell-bound eyes into the mystic state, 

God-crowned, of sphered apsis consecrate — 

The noble climax of a grand design. 
Then gild the Corinth-caps, and fill the space 

Of feigned heaven with all the majesty 

Of august forms, telling a sovran tale. 
Make me, O Muse, a song alike in grace, 

In plenitude, in thralling potency. 

Ah, then, indeed, would laureled bards wax pale ! 



6i 



SIMILITUDES 

Not so unlike the young year and the old ! 

Rosy the buds of Spring, which, here and there 
Beneath the balm of more indulgent air. 
Burst into tender life of greenish gold — 

A ruffling, aureate filigree on cold. 

Celestial blue ! Pearly the clouds, that stare 
At their own pearliness, beholden where 
Reflecting freshets vernal fields infold ! 

So in benignant Indian Summer time 
Soft zephyrs agitate deciduous leaves. 
Saffron and waning red ; while flooded meads 

Respond to bluish skies — as though in prime 
The year, whose last brave show deft interweaves 
These living colors with its funeral weeds ! 



62 



TO A SPIRIT 

Oh come no more in dreams to ruffle me. 
For I have hung the laurel on thy tomb. 
Oh come no more to me in softest bloom 
Of youth supreme, for calm as effigy 

Enmarbled, passionless, I ever see 

Thee in my ranging thoughts, while I assume 
The burden of my daily claims, or plume 
My wings to soar in sombre rhapsody. 

But when I see thee ardent in my sleep. 
As thou wert wont to be, so winning fair, 
With promptings in thine eyes like to the star 

Of Love, thou hopelessly away dost sweep 

All calm resolves ; and when the night doth wear. 
Thou seem'st so unattainable and far ! 



63 



SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE — AN 
INVOCATION 



Teach me, immortal Masters of the past. 
How to the aggregated honied store 
Of beauty absolute, ye added your 
Sweet dole ; and how ye wistful coaxed the vast. 

Transmitted science to your moods, nor cast 
Aside its pith, as so much pithless lore ; 
But with a wise adroitness what before 
Was good ye bettered. Yet of your amassed. 

And winnowed knowledge let me not be slave. 
Mere copyist of some world-blazoned deed, 
A variant-maker of transcendent things — 

The which ye never were. But I would crave 
Your messages, and then would see ye speed 
Aloft, for aye, on argentine, swift wings. 



64 



SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE 
II 

Come now, O Life, and tell me of thy ways. 
Come now, O Love, and touch an alien heart. 
Come now, O Flame, and to my soul impart 
An ecstasy that on broad vans may raise 

It zenith-wards. Teach me, O Sight, to gaze 
On Nature's wealth, to note how sure the art 
With which she works, and how she gluts her mart 
With rich suggestiveness, she fain displays 

To those who seek. Teach me, O sculpturing Sea, 
How thou dost whorl the nacreous shell's volute, 
And thou, O Land, how thou dost deck thy bowers, 

And, changing Sky, how thou the galaxy 
Dost belt at night, and in the day on mute. 
Dark clouds dost paint the rainbow after showers. 



65 



TO DAMON 

My friend, I love thee for the female strain 
That in thy quiet mood I note in thee. 
At times thou surgest like the Northern Sea ; 
More oft thy bosom trembles to the rain 

From summer clouds. And when thou dost enchain 
Me with a smile of tender sympathy. 
Soft as a girl's, then thou dost seem to me 
Like some Greek deity, who doth maintain 

His godhood high with dignity and grace. 

With splendid strength, and winning gentleness — 
That Hermes, let us say, who doth beguile 

The infant Bacchus with the grape. His face 
Divine doth with heroic power impress ; 
Yet if he oped his lips — 't would be to smile. 



66 



ENFORCED INACTION 



To rock among the doldrums with one's nerves 
On edge ; to list to idle flap of sail. 
And hear the swish of ropes, the futile wail 
From inert, stanchest tackle that well serves 

To brace when straining rigging leeward curves 
In graceful arcs before the buckling gale ; 
To gird for promised energies that fail 
Coeval with their birth, for wind that swerves 

From its true path ; nor yet alert to know — 
If ever — whence will draw true purpose-breeze; 
Ah, that I hold is misery indeed ! 

To wait equipped, heroical, nor show 
Impatience at the languid, scoffing seas. 
Aye, that I deem o'ertops a warrior's meed ! 



67 



ENFORCED INACTION 
II 

5r<? windward just within the ken of eye. 

From windward on the utmost verge of sea — 
Where heaven doth wed it in passivity — 
An azure line divorcing it from sky 

Inflates its foaming girth till white caps high 
O'ercrest dread curling walls, awhile our lee 
Deep-dips into the moat before the free. 
Fierce gales that swoop to universal cry. 

Danger is there in the pounding surge ? 
Joy in use of atrophying thew ? 
Distress that we may never love again. 

Nor taste its velvet pledge ? Nay ! Whirlwinds urge 
To acts^ to wrestle with the froth-flecked blue. 
To revel in the wassail of the main ! 



68 



THE ITALIAN TONGUE 

This noble tongue doth type its glorious land. 
The liquid ebb and flow of cadenced sound 
Sings like the sapphire waves that smooth redound. 
Only to pulse again on sighing strand. 

Distinct each vowel stands, as salient stand 
Swart cypresses at vesper-time around 
Some shrine ; yet soft as silvery hillocks crowned 
With airy olives pale. In structure grand. 

As that heroic range which doth entwine 

Its diadems with pearl-set clouds — now blue. 
Now rose, according to the flitting shine. 

Or shade — the immemorial Apennine. 

A tongue most apt the tenderest heart to woo. 
Or thunder in the monumental line. 



69 



TO A CHILD 

Could I but guide thee through the lowering mist. 
Then would I take the lesser part in fight. 
And stand true sentinel throughout the night 
That masks the panoplied antagonist 

Ripe to ensnare. Were I an exorcist. 

Then from the darkness would I conjure light, 
And by the potence of some cryptic rite 
From rue the sweetest influence enlist. 

Upon the floriate hillocks of a land — 

Red with the poppy, gray with serest grass. 
Crimson with joy, ashen with deeds that cry 

To ages in their shame — great watch-towers stand, 
Alert and isolate, in tested mass 
Bulwarks supreme. And so, dear heart, stand I ! 



70 



REMINISCENT 

Oh, the exceeding beauty and the pain 
Of that fair hour along the wooded crest, 
The far horizon-stretch of hills caressed 
By swooning mists, bathed in a golden rain 

Of satiate love, which Sun on westward wane 
Had poured upon requiting Earth, thrice blest 
With consummation of a hope expressed 
In happy irised hues from peak to plain. 

Then was I aching with a fell desire 

As yet unquenched, nor ever to be quenched. 
And heard the mutual pulse — alas, not mine ! 

And saw the impassioned rays of trembling fire 

Wrap the warm heights in amorous perfumes 

drenched. 
And felt the breath of love — alas, not thine ! 



71 



TO BERENICE 



Not one triumphant line hast thou inspired 
In all my verse that bears sweet reference 
To thee — though freighted with a love immense. 
For in my dreams thou comest not attired 

In victor's golden chlamys, and bright fired 
Withal by thine heart-issued flame intense. 
To utter words of burning eloquence 
That might exalt me to a singing, quired 

By cherubim. Nay, palely dost thou beam 
Like Star of twilight after hours of tears 
Have saddened darkling Nature's wearied face. 

Thou dost not gild my song with joyous gleam. 
Yet am I glad, indeed, if it appears 
That thou hast touched it with a sombre grace. 



72 



TO BERENICE 
II 

Though dazzling adolescence crowned thy mien. 
And thy fair flesh should not unworthy be 
To wear proud Aphrodite's girdle — she 
Who sprang from less white ocean's foam — a Queen 

To some, to others Hell — and should the sheen 
Of clustered Pleiads sparkle in thy free. 
Love-laden eyes ; and should I raptured see 
Thee faultless-formed — divine — as when serene. 

And unabashed, transcendent Phryne dips 
Into the waves before the straining men 
Of thronging Greece : and were the melody 

Of glowing Sappho on thy lyric lips ; 

Yet hadst thou kindness not withal — ah then, 
O Berenice, thou wert naught to me. 



73 



TO BERENICE 

III 

Only a model ! yet she comes to me 
In all her fairness for a paltry pay ; 
Not bold, or coy, but in the frankest way 
Striving to please. Nor does it need my plea 

Enforced to show with guileless vanity 

Her elegant, white limbs' harmonious sway; 
Or light upon the argent breasts' display ; 
Or shadings into loveliest mystery 

Of softest tones incarnadine. Oh yes. 
Only a model ! yet she gladly brings 
Her choicest all, and gives ; nor asks for pain 

In payment — naught but coin. But to possess 
Some petty gift from thee — the falterings 
Of thy frail heart — costs hundredfold her gain. 



74 



TO BERENICE 



IV 



What do ye know of them who smite the lyre. 

Ye prim, immaculately mannered maids. 

Who pen within decorous palisades 

The tamest, best preened fowl — those who admiii 
Your coy, imperious ways, nor aught desire 

Than that which flatters you, and self degrades ? 

What know ye of the Eagle that invades 

The utmost skies, and darkens the Sun's fire 
With spread of virile wings ; that soaring courts 

The mad, unbridled storm-clouds, and the great, 

White poignant peaks of heaven, forever free 
From fecundating rain ; that fierce consorts 

With some congenial, wild, impassioned mate. 

Eager to bear him loftiest company ? 



75 



BERENICE ? 



And who may wayward Berenice be. 
You ask ? But I discreetly answer not. 
Save this — if chance to-day has cast my lot 
With Madeline, lithe as the flexile tree 

That flees too amorous airs, it may be she. 
But if in some provoking posied spot, 
I find my Rosamond, and heed with what 
Spontaneous eyes and smiles she lureth me. 

Why then 't is Rosamond. Yet when unmoved 
By visual maid I give my fancy play. 
And fashion my sweet love with pearls it gleans 

From each, e'en then it is not clearly proved 
That this ideal is she ; for well it may 
Be really Berenice, queen of queens. 



76 



KINDNESS I 

A Question of Casuistry 

Our conscience-flame oft flickers in the air 
That wavers with an alternating mood. 
Nor always trendeth true towards rectitude. 
As firm trade-winds trend true, which favoring bear 

The bark to its inevitable lair. 

For if with fealty to a code indued. 

Or if in sanctimony deep imbued 

We should, to save our souls, unswerving swear 

Allegiance to truth only, yet should wound 
A tender heart by rigid loyalty — 
Aye, wound it to the quick, a gentle heart 

That should be spared — should not our speech be 
pruned 
With some soul-compromising chivalry ? 
Should we not Mercy to our words impart? 



17 



KINDNESS II 

The Sowing 

Oh sow the seeds of kindness everywhere 
With lavish palms ! In thy fastidiousness 
Choose not the soil alone that has excess 
Of nutriment, but cast them, too, on bare 

And arid wastes where God alone can care 

To raise them — aye, perchance He may, and bless 
Thy zeal. Cast forth thy seeds ! thou canst not guess 
The harvesting : for e'en among the tare 

And thistle they may wax. Have I not seen 
Vermilioned poppies vaunt upon a wall 
Soilless and parched ? and sturdy dark fringed trees 

Spring from the riven crags ? and spirits clean 
Among the unclean thrive ? Then cast thine all 
With broadest hands, and it may root like these. 



78 



Similitudes 

" Not so unlike the young year and the old" 

See Page 62 





■Sj«-M'^Si*.. 



■^Mi 



KINDNESS III 

The Reaping 

Thou didst but little know, O gentle One, 
When to a stranger thou wert frankly kind 
As is thy wont, that thou didst deftly bind 
With medicating balm a soul undone — 

A body broken in life's racking run. 

For thou, in truth, perceivedst not a mind 

Devoid of play reciprocal, nor blind 

To thy swift tearless clouds, nor to the sun 

Of thy bright smile — such is the human power 
To masquerade. And though 't were impulse free 
Not will — to charm him to forgetfiilness, 

Yet is he grateful for the happy hour. 
And afterglow of sweet immunity ; 
And thy remembered face will ever bless. 



79 



AN EPISODE 

» (to e. t.) 

Happy the hour when you were moved to say, 

" This sanest, sweetest month of June doth naught 
Avail me now, and that which should have brought 
Mind's ease doth bring it not. Come, let us play 

Upon the waiting wall a summer's lay — 

The soughing trees, and fragrant meadows fraught 
With daisies white and gold, and grasses caught 
By softly errant airs, and vapors gray. 

That lave the uplands and the loftier hill." 
And as the picture grew apace, despite 
The tempting lure to temporize, I came 

To know you well. Could but my craftsman's skill 
Arise coequal to your high thoughts' height, 
In modesty I might consort with fame ! 



80 



TO FOUR ANGORA CATS 

O GLAUCOUS-EYED, whiter than swirls of snow! 
And thou, O tawny one with amber eyes ! 
And thou, O Maltese-gray ! — Where ocean lies 
On shallow sands, so clear and greenish show 

Thine orbs ! — And where pale sky reposes low 
Upon the frosty hills, so harmonize 
Thy light-blue eyne with fleecy fur that vies 
With fay-bleached wool ! How all your move- 
ments flow 

Into harmonious lines, whether ye start 
With thews alert, or in a ravishment 

Of ease pose like a couchant sphinx in Art ! 
And in refinement's ways how diligent ! 

What gratitude ye to your song impart — 
What ecstasy of unconceived content ! 



8i 



TO A CARTOON 

Sheathe thy keen sword, and lift the olive pale. 
Gemmed with its purple fruit, the gonfalon 
Of Peace — and let it silvery stream upon 
Fresh, halcyon airs, that commerce-scented trail 

A fleet's perfume, when on the seas prevail 
All amities — yet ever and anon. 
Beclouded by the godless cannon's wan. 
Involving breath, and vocalized by hail. 

Ravening to carnal goal. No more, no more. 
My Country, such expression fell of power ! 
Nor would I see thee lulled to strifeless rest. 

Or self-content — but ever to the fore 

In works that make for Excellence, that tower 
Preeminent in Peace — a bloodless Best. 



82 



CONVINCING HOMILIES 

What easy stuff for affluent folk to talk 
Of honesty, whose chiefest daily task 
Is how to spend ! For them to wear the mask 
Of rectitude is play ! But does the hawk 

In appetite the unwary song-bird stalk 

For the mere stalking's pleasure ? Does he ? Ask 
The thiever why he thieves ! Perhaps to bask 
In some good woman's smile ; perhaps to walk 

Into a hungry home full-handed — not 
For thieving's sake. In verity I 'd see 

Our preachers wealth-shorn, more alike to what 
The Messiah was — sharing in poverty 

With the sore-tempted ones their grievous lot : 
Then might they preach a thrilling homily ! 



83 



SILENCE 

Let me but catch once more a murmuring low — 

So gentle that alone the tensest ear 

From Nature's throbs can sift the accents dear — 

The sweet impulsive tones that once did flow 
From candid thought, and voiced the heart's frank glow. 

Let me but once again — once only — hear 

Thy raiment-rustle ! Then a boding fear 

Will be allayed, and I shall surely know 
That thou still liv'st for me. The ripe, tall grain 

Quails at the silence that precedes the crash; 

And gentle flowers pale at threatening fate ; 
And gallant warriors watch with nervous strain 

The lanyard-pull that ushers in the flash ; 

And I ? In everlasting dread I wait ! 



84 



PATIENCE, YE FRAGILE ONES! 

Patience, ye fragile ones ! Let not your hope 
Take sudden flight on apprehensive wing, 
Nor yield to a despair unreasoning, 
Because in pain was cast your horoscope. 

Oh bear in mind how they with odds did cope 
The glorious Few, who, with the poisoned sting 
Of death inoculate, did smiling wring 
The crown from startled victory, and ope 

The gates of Fame. In moments of eclipse 
They builded in heroic rhapsody 
Great haloed things, and to their parched lips 

Sprang wondrous words : and when in some degree — 
Afid for brief, yearned-for hours — their sun was free 
To shine, they made these dreams reality. 



85 



TO ART STUDENTS 



Tall is the pine that makes the noble mast 
From which a nation's symboled honor floats ; 
Lofty the elm that graciously devotes 
Its labored growth to ample shadows cast 

In summer time. Against the zenith vast. 
The royal maples flame as antidotes 
To its bewildering blue, when hoar-frost coats 
The sering dales. And thou, sweet violet, hast 

Thy sphere — O lowly one that to cool sod 

Dost cling. And valley-lily, thou — and thou. 

White blossom, couched in shiny leaves that nod 
To southern airs — to help ye well know how ; 

For ye can cheer a poor, sick-burdened bed. 
Or crown with innocence a fair bride's head. 



86 



TO ART STUDENTS 
II 

Not all the flora are commensurate. 

Nor all your statures of an equal height : 

But if ye act according to the light 

Which God hath set in you, and wisely mate 

Your deeds with your capacities, nor bate 
One jot your highest reach, and surely sight 
Your talents' goal, and thither guide your flight 
Unswervingly ; ye will not blame your fate 

That ye are not as tall as taller ones. 
Waste not the hours in air too rarified. 
Nor sacrifice the gift the world doth need 

In these crude days when gilded Mammon's sons 
Hold high the head. With every thew applied 
Sow broad the fallows with minutest seed. 



87 



, ANGLO-SAXON DOMINATION 

What would ye have ? world-wide similitude ? 
The Anglo-Saxon signet everywhere — 
Force regnant on a field of gold o'er spare, 
Starved Charm supine ? Would ye forsooth exclude 

All varied loveliness ? would ye obtrude 

Your tasteless, Procrustesian ways which pare 
All shapes to market-needs, that thenceforth bear 
The impress of a domination crude ? 

What would ye have ? a day alike a day. 
And night alike a night eternally ? 
Always the wind that romps from polar star. 

Or southern cross ? Along your tedious way 
One petaled tone, one plastic harmony — 
Nor that most fair — in reaches regular? 



88 



MEMORIAL DAY 

(Gettysburg) 

Between the martial trumpets of to-day 

And echoing bugles of a vivid past. 

Which thrilled a Nation's youth with war-born blast, 

My roving fancies many a scene survey ; 
But none more sadly sweet than that fair lay 

Of bounteous land which the great Sculptor cast 

In genial mould of Peace. I saw it grassed 

With May-time's tenderest green and o'er it stray 
The soft-paced shadows from a dreamy light ; 

While on the horizon dozed the mountains blue. 

'Twixt ridge and ridge there lies a fertile plain 
Where peach-trees bloomed and corn. Here the great 
fight 

Was won, that changed the summer's harvest-hue 

To color of the interwoven slain. 



89 



EARLY CHRISTIAN MOSAICS 

Supremely still it is, supremely still ! 

Athwart the ebon dome of unmooned night 
Pierce the sharp, vibrant stars. O holy light ! 
The noble trees, the densely wooded hill 

Loom stately in their blurred forms, and fill 
The soul with awe by their imposing might — 
Their mystic mass. And now in second sight 
I seem to stand within the death-like chill 

Of some great apse, solemn, and mute, and dark : 
Above me range a mighty, august line 
Of sombre forms that deep the heart impress ; 

While through the incensed gloom a shimmering spark 
From golden inlay silently doth shine. 
How great the Art by very Artlessness ! 



90 



RAPHAELITES AND PRERAPHAELITES 

The sky is dappled with a silvery mist. 

Through which the sun half-breaks with shrouded 
gleam, 

Like to a veiled eye that doth half-beam 

Its fuller promise of the future tryst. 
The distance is involved in amethyst ; 

And vernal grasses travel with the stream ; 

And buds portend a blossoming supreme ; 

And ye, O fruitful, southern Airs how whist 
Ye are ! Anon the unclouded sun will shine 

From out the voided field of flawless blue. 

And buds will bloom beneath soft Auster's breath. 
But while the budding is the promised sign 

Of fairest, fullest Life which must ensue. 

That fullest Life suggesteth only Death. 



91 



A COLD JUNE DAY 

Gay June, as is her wont, has donned her dress 
Of deepest green; and vari-colored flowers — 
Filching their tints from summer's irised showers — 
On billowing fields their heightening hues impress. 

And yet it is a specious loveliness ! 

For keen winds blow, and all the honied bowers 
Hoard their sweet fragrance, while the poor chilled 

hours 
Pass shivering by, disowned and comfortless. 

And there, indeed, are many faces fair — 

And seeming soft as this bleak morn of June — 

That *neath their canon-perfect features wear 
A soul as frigid as the wintry moon. 

And there are spoken words that cannot sway. 
Though plausible as this bright, heartless day. 



92 



ON THE PIER, NEW YORK 



While walking on the tide-washed river pier, 
I saw the Italian brow, low crowned, with hair 
Drawn back and knotted simply — as doth wear 
Her locks. Love's goddess, waving o'er the ear 

To gather in a cresting coil. 'T was clear 

This brow was modeled nigh the columned square 
Bedewed with gemel-fountain spray, and where 
The great Dome dominates. For only here 

Are born these women of the noble mien 
Whose puissant necks majestically set 
On massive busts, bear burdens with the free, 

And stately carriage of a gem-crowned queen. 
Yet as I gazed, I could not drown regret. 
And sadly sighed my heart across the sea. 



93 



ON THE PIER 

II 

And yet this yearning for an alien shore 
Is but the craving for a happiness 
That cannot be for ardent men ; unless 
With perfect beauty there be proffered more 

Than its own charm ; unless they hear Life's roar ; 
Unless they fling into the daily stress. 
And battle for the ultimate success 
Of some supreme ideal, that heretofore 

The world has known not, or could not attain. 
If ever Life did grant a boundless scope. 
If ever Life did hold aloft the bays. 

Ready to crown the humblest hand or brain. 
And recompense with golden gain, and ope 
The ports of Fame — 'T is in this Land — these 
Days. 



94 



ON THE PIER 



III 



Oh what a blessedness to dwell secure 

In climes caste-free ; to breathe the wholesome air 
Sweet with a consciousness of worth, and where 
The keen four-quartered winds hound oiFthe impure, 

Debasing germs of kingship, which insure 
A growing impotence from heir to heir ! 
And if it be that on the glittering stair 
Of Fortune, heaven-high, the man obscure 

Doth mount, and then play tyrant with his gold. 
And crush the many 'neath his weight of wheel — 
Or even buy the fasces of a State — 

We must deplore, yet not despair ; for cold. 
Hard Chance that did enact, may yet repeal. 
And leave him shivering at her icy gate. 



95 



ON THE PIER 

IV 

Indomitable Eagle, calm thine eye 

Fierce-raging, and thy cruel talons keep 
Whetted alone for jackals that would creep 
Within our prosperous, peaceful cotes to ply 

Their thieving trade. Spread out thy vans, O high. 
And holy Emblem, that beneath their sweep 
Thy callow, nursling brood awhile may sleep. 
And gather needed strength to amplify. 

Thy nursling brood ? I mean that scanty band — 
The zealots who would strew the fairer things ; 
Who would estop the sins that compromise 

Our sense of Beauty ; who would ward the Land 
From those vulgarities that barter brings ; 
And keep it lovely as the virgin Skies. 



96 



ON THE PIER 



And theirs has been a thorny task, indeed ; 
And pitiful the recompense, though great 
The toil. Ah, were the gain proportionate 
To lavished labor, theirs would be the meed 

To satisfy a steel-eyed usurer's greed, 

And an astounded "street" would proudly rate 
Them " kings." But such ambitions animate 
Them not to sow the bullion-bearing seed. 

Sweeter they plant, and hope for fruit of praise ; 
And look for honor in their generous land ; 
And ask for a few leaflets dark and green 

To shade the pale, worn brow ; and words to raise 
Them upwards — that is all. They crave to stand 
Among the patriots^ laureled and serene. 



97 



FINIS CORONAT OPUS 

On thy low porch with knotted hands resigned, 
Thou sittest, aged peon, in young May 
Serenely gazing at the white array 
Of jocund blossoms, mocking the aligned. 

Censorious pines that darkly frown behind 
The wanton apples, heedless of the day. 
When their nude limbs beneath the heavens gray 
Shall cry aloud to wintry winds unkind. 

What thinkest thou ? Of those few smiling hours 
Which on thy exigent laborious years 
Make bold relief? or of the decades spent 

In level, mindless toil ? At least there lowers 
Not o'er thy view a cloud of unshed tears — 
The consciousness of power impotent ! 



98 



To a Cartoon 

" Sheathe thy keen sword, and lift the olive pale '' 

See Page Si 



iJl 



WELCOME TEARS 

How sweet and still the vapor-shrouded air. 
How deeply green the nap on velvet meads. 
As evening cometh in her low-toned weeds 
To greet black-mantled night ! " 'Twill not be fair," 

The crickets chirp, and nature everywhere 
Seems privy to the rain. The marish reeds 
Proclaim it, and the topmost pine that feeds 
On milky clouds of dawn, and whatsoe'er 

Hath hope of life. And yet I am not sad 
As oft I am when darker tempests lower. 
That leave their mark through miserable years ; 

For now all things that grow seem truly glad 
To pass from sunbeams to the coming shower. 
From burning joy to soft, relieving tears. 



99 



ON READING THE BROWNING 
LETTERS (i 845-1 846) 

O Love, when thou dost hold in blinding bond 
E'en lofty hearts — if bondage can be called 
To stand lid-closed in paradise enwalled — 
With scorn for other hearts that correspond 

Thou girdest them. Whate'er may be beyond 
Their flowery close ; whate'er may be installed 
In trimmer garths ; whate'er may be enthralled 
In ravishment, entranced by Eros' wand. 

Is less. But yet your lover's insolence 
Most gladly we condone, ye noble twain : 
For chance because of it ye do coerce 

A sympathy for love's exchange intense. 
And spiritual, which she who lived in pain 
Wrought into high, incomparable verse. 



100 



ASPIRATION 

Ye spell me, O ye tree-tops, thrusting high 
Your darksome domes and pinnacles that pale 
The enameled vault, and raise to blinding scale 
The aggregated clouds, and glorify 

Their glory. On the ample blue they lie 

Like full-sparred yachts with spread of shining sail 
Incredible, when summer airs prevail. 
Ye spell me, O ye tree-tops, for the sky 

Envelops you, nor do my lifted lids 

See whence nor how ye rise, nor from what soil 
Your delving roots draw life, whether from mire, 

Or purer earth ; from that which God forbids. 
Or grants ; by hallowed or unhallowed toil. 
I only know that ye to Heaven aspire. 



lOI 



TO SOME HISTORIANS OF ART 

** Light is a Modern Quality." 

Whene'er I hear this careless utterance 

From Art's high-priests, forthwith there come to me 

Dissenting visions of Antiquity, 

And dreams demurring of the Renaissance — 

The pictured peristyles and halls that dance 
With light in gay Pompeii by the sea. 
And Livia's villa bright with fruiting tree, 
With flowers and birds ; and our inheritance 

Of frescoed walls — fresh as the name implies — 
From Giotto of the monumental mien 
To Tiepolo, who touched Gleam's utmost height. 

And yet these sanctioned prophets overwise 
Aver that moderns — O conceit serene ! — 
Reissued God's decree " Let there be Light ! " 



102 



FOR TERSENESS 

After the briered thicket, and the dense. 
Impervious, harshly tangled forest-ways. 
With what relief from effort spent we gaze 
Upon the unhindered ocean's void immense. 

The spread of glebe, or noble eminence 

Without a fleck — save where some shade obeys 
A cloud superior, and swift, ardent rays 
Hot follow it. Oh, with what grateful sense, 

Emergent from the brambled growth of word. 
Locution tortuous, and phrase that limps 
From lecture-room — where scientists compile 

Their barbarous terms, and paraphrase absurd — 
On some terse page we catch a sudden glimpse 
Of thornless periods in the classic style ! 



103 



AFTER-STORM 

The tasseled maize wind-smitten prostrate lies. 
And wide the encumbered earth is thickly strewn 
With ripening fruit, with leaves and ramage hewn 
From sturdier limbs ; and not a flower flies 

Its oriflamme (prone flowers that we did prize 
For flawless comeliness !) since still the noon 
Cloud-ceiled withholds the tender rays which soon 
Will lift them towards regenerating skies. 

But yet not scathless! For in truth I trow 

That every wrath-burst leaves an ingrained scar. 
Then, O my Love, forever hold afar 

The quarrel from us twain, nor let thy brow 
Be gathered, nor its smoothness ever mar ; 
But let it spotless gleam, as it gleams now ! 



104 



TO A GREEK TEMPLE 



This morn I chanced to scan the graven plate 
Of a Greek temple, and I pondered long 
Upon its perfectness, awhile a throng 
Of thrilling reveries did high elate 

Me as I thought how it was generate — 
This beauty absolute, this builded song, 
Symmetric, monumental, pure, and strong, 
Simple in mass, and yet most adequate 

In its details — in faith, a perfect thing ; 
Because succeeding artists deemed it wise 
Within their straitened boundaries to strive 

To better what seemed best, nor yet to ring 
An over-personal note, nor compromise 
By self those eurythmies that still survive. 



105 



TO A GREEK TEMPLE 
II 

Thrice happy thought that came to quickening Greek 

To cap his temple with a Victory, 

Winging adown the azured canopy, 

To light upon the culminating peak 
Of sculptured pediment, and thence to speak 

Approval of the Gods ; while zephyrs free 

Soft swirl her limning draperies, as she 

Doth crown this paragon of the antique 
With the uplifted laurel. Ah, what bliss 

To terminate with some enwreathed renown 

Whatever we may earnestly have sown, 
Whether it may attain, or likelier miss. 

Our heartiest hope. But oh — but oh to crown 

Perfection from its very corner-stone ! 



io6 



TO A GREEK TEMPLE 

III 

To preface daily duty it is well 

To contemplate some passing loveliness 
In art or nature, that it may impress 
Upon our work's routine its soaring spell, 

And counteract the ingenious-fabricked hell 
Which man creates in order to possess 
A garnered opulence far in excess 
Of his own need and certain to impel 

His progeny to vicious sloth. This sight 

Of Beauty at toil's dawn — though it give place 
To searing sights — does for the fainting soul 

What the refreshing dew of nurstling night 

Does for the earth's sun-smitten, drooping face — 
Lifts and sustains, till day achieve its goal. 



107 



NATURE'S CHARM 

Enchantment lies not in the acquired name. 
Nor in the mastered laws of Nature's ways 
Which in their operations aye amaze 
Us by their subtleties — so oft the same 

For faintest sparklet and Life's fullest flame. 
To know is well. Yet when I raptured gaze 
Upon the play of vibrant, quivering rays 
Through wind-blown leaves in June, shall I declaim 

On Botany ? or shall I laud the light. 

Glinting through ram age as a maiden's eyes 
Glint through her flitting moods ? Or when I see 

Convolving cumulus that blinds the sight. 

Forcing to blackness trees that fringe the skies 
What then, what then is Forestry to me ? 



1 08 



vox POPULI 

What makes, you ask, ephemeral, blatant fame ? 
In faith, a modicum of talent spent 
With tact, and the vociferous assent 
Of two or three high-priests, who wholly claim 

The public ear. Aye, they can fan to flame 
A very moderate ash. They give full vent 
To reflex praise ; and that dear element 
In man, which, as in foolish sheep, doth aim 

At mimicry in order to exist 

In mindless ease — in order to appear 
Alike to other sheep within the pen — 

That element will play evangelist 

To their most sacred words — and you will hear 
It bleating through the world "Amen," " Amen." 



109 



STINT NOT THY PRAISE! 

If thou hast cause to laud, stint not thy praise ! 
Yield it with clarion tongue unchecked by fear 
Of flattery ! Yield it as Vesper clear 
Yields her abundant, cooling dews, which raise 

Sun-swooning things ! See how the valley-maize 
With rustling leaves that sheathe the bearded ear 
Doth welcome her ! Do thou, too, bravely cheer 
With lifting speech the tired, drooping days 

Of the creative soul, when it doth need 

High, stimulating words. Thou must not think 
It is not chastened by a frequent Blame ; 

I'hat is its price, and Praise its rarer meed. 

It stands more often on the chilling brink 
Of Disesteem, than on the crest of Fame ! 



no 



FAREWELLS 



From some good friend we take a gay farewell. 
When blithe he stands upon a mighty ship, 
Beaming with prospect of a pleasure trip 
To lands unknown, or those that do compel, 

By proven charm a thraldom to their spell — 
As he who having quaffed from honied lip 
Is maddened till the nectar he resip. 
Soon wilt thou balance to the cadenced swell, 

O friend, of the ungovernable, great sea — 

Great in its moods — blue to the sun, and gray 
To lowering clouds, and white with whirlwind's spray. 

And black to swart, portentous night. But we. 
Pleased at thy pleasure, as we bid adieu. 
See only calm, and all a heavenly hue. 



Ill 



FAREWELLS 

II 

To say good-bye to some beloved place 
Is sad, wherein associations dear 
Have grown coeval with sweet things that rear 
Their annual bloom to coaxing skies ; that grace 

Our efforts to enhance ; that interlace 
Their loveliness with our desire sincere 
To beautify a too-oft blemished sphere — 
To guard it from the mania to deface 

The noble for mean love of gain. Good-bye 
Ye fruiting trees, ye elms, ye evergreens. 
That sweep the close-cropped lawns, ye lordly 
flowers. 

And humbler, useful plants — yet fair to eye — 
Berries and creeping vines, and climbing beans. 
And all the offspring of the sun and showers ! 



112 



FAREWELLS 

III 

When waning Moon dissolves her fringes soft 
Into the void, and when the voiceless flow 
Of osiered streams through channeled meads below 
Is traced by argent exhalations ; oft 

Comes gentle Poesy, who, having doffed 

Her prudish, day-time moods, doth spread her glow 
Romantic over verdurous things that grow 
On fields beneath to star-flecked fields aloft. 

'T is easier thus, I think, to take that last. 

And tense Farewell, when duty's trump doth call — 
For aye perhaps — thus aureoled by high. 

And glamorous light, with loving arms to clasp 
The peerless one that is our all in all, 
And feel the throb of heart — then say " Good-bye ! " 



113 



FAREWELLS 

IV 

'T IS worse with the soul's counterpart to stand 
Face to pale face in some environment 
Uncouth — to which sole dignity is lent 
By pathos of the scene — and though unmanned, 

By an o'ertortured heart's sad legend, and. 
Unnerved by dread of what the Omnipotent 
Alone foresees, to seem indifferent. 
And place a quiet hand in quiet hand. 

'T is worse to smother thus the straining fire, 
To strangle feeling that aloud would sob. 
To bid adieu with level, steadfast gaze 

Into the eyes controlled of Love's desire, 
When well we know that Misery must rob 
Our rightful rest through ever lengthening days. 



114 



FAREWELLS 

V 

And how felt he who razed Jerusalem 
To the dust's level, Zion's conqueror. 
Imperial Titus — who in triumph bore 
The trophy seven-branched on golden stem — 

When adamantine statesmen did condemn 

Him to renounce his moist-eyed love, though sore 
At heart ; when from her ashen brow they tore 
Judaean Berenice's royal gem ? 

And how felt he when from the Palatine, 

Pompous with plundered wealth — the cynosure 
Of the impoverished world supine — with grave, 

Sad mien she sailed for Syrian shores to pine 
Disconsolate ? Methinks, much as some poor. 
Heart-broken slave, when wrenched from fellow 
slave ! 



115 



FAREWELLS 
VI 

Melodious Lyrist, thou who didst persuade 
The nether gods to grant thy dear request, 
And give back life to thy young bride all blest — 
Eurydice ; sweet Bard, who didst evade 

The Fates wet-cheeked with tears, and through the 
shade 
From Tartarus didst lightward lead thy best. 
Thy loveliest love ; O, Orpheus, what possessed 
Thee then to turn thy glances retrograde ? 

For, when upon the verge of this bright world. 
She faded pleading from thy swooning sight. 
Stretching her widowed arms in her desire 

To be inseparate, and thence was furled 
Into the folds of viewless, final night. 
Oh, what availed thee then thy heaven-strung lyre ? 



ii6 



Aspiration 

*< Ye spell me, O ye tree-tops thrusting high" 

See Page ioi 



•'iw:vi'm 



FAREWELLS 

VII 

Not when the bier descends into the grave 
Burdened with fading tokens of our grief — 
Roses, or wilding flower, or sombre leaf. 
Or violet sad — for then the world we brave. 

Not then God's help do we heart-plundered crave. 
But earlier, when the lessening breath-beats brief. 
And faint proclaim the coming sovran thief, 
Black-pennate, who inaudibly doth wave 

The stolen soul afar, alas so far. 

So hopelessly afar. And when the eyes, 
Pleaded their final message, say no more ; 

And when the form beloved, pale as a star 
At dawn, doth shine unearthly as it lies 
Peaceful at rest — then may we well implore ! 



117 



LYRICS 



119 



EVENING CHIMES 

Are they not sweet 
These chimes that come to us on western air 

At evening fair. 

And rhythmic beat 
The dusking vale with softly pulsing feet ? 

Are they not blest. 
These bells that ring their changes on the past ? 

No bugle-blast 

To stirring quest, 
They merely float the soul on waves of rest. 

Why are they sad 
These notes that bring the heart an anodyne, 

A hope divine ? 

No maiden had 
A tenderer call at dusk to trysting glad. 



121 



Is it the hour. 
When whirl of work gives place to poise of eve ? 

When day-stars weave 

With night's a bower 
Of pensive shade that has such soothing power ? 

Is it that night 
Is symbol of the end of world-lit days, 

And mundane ways ; 

And that their flight 
Means death-sleep till the dawn of whiter light ? 

Is it that we 
In the diurnal glass of petty life 

Self's mirrored strife 

Do only see. 
Nor heed the universal agony ; 



122 



And, when surcease 
Activities which turn us from the thought 

Of man distraught. 

Clear-eyed in peace. 
We pray that he may have a like release ? 

May it perchance 
Be that sweet sadness which doth aye abide 

At Beauty's side. 

And doth enhance 
Her state, and musing minds doth deep entrance ? 

The splendid scene. 
That lies illumed by noonday's highest flames, 

All joy proclaims, 

Yet cannot screen 
The serious moods that ever intervene. 



123 



Then how much less — 
When westering hours, chiming carols sweet. 
The night-stars greet — 
Can loveliness 
Of gray-girt eve our sadder thoughts suppress. 



124 



MAY-DAY AFTERNOON, STOCKBRIDGE 

Sweet orient Skies — as palest turquoise pale — 
How gleam ye o'er the wintry mountain's crest 
Tree-woven, where the forest-maids undressed 

Their pure white limbs unto glad Spring unveil ! 

Sweet orient Skies ! 

Ye dark-armed Pines — as lethal judges dark — 
How frown ye in your high forbidding state 
On these frail birches whom ye solemn rate 

As frivolous ! Alack, they do not hark, 

Ye dark-armed Pines ! 

O freshest Grass — as morning zephyrs fresh — 
How paintest thou the level river-land 
With color far more vivid than the strand 

Of emerald in a fairy's jeweled mesh ? 

O freshest Grass ! 



125 



Pale Willows lithe — as lithe as lithest girl 
From Tanagra, who in Art's plastic days 
Did trace her form beneath the chiton's maze — 

How smile ye at the angry torrent's swirl ! 

Pale Willows lithe! 

O western Light — as mellow as the glow 

On Titian's clouds, sea-born — how dost thou steep 
Thyself in gold ? And while cool shadows sleep 

Upon the hills, thou gildest all below, 

O western Light ! 

O May divine — as fair as Pleiad fair 

From whom thou hast thy naming — Maia sweet. 
Who lured the love from Jove — is it not meet 

That I should sing thee to the southern air ? 

O May divine ? 



126 



EXPRESSIONS — A SONG 

It is said that in the eyes 

Expression lies. 
That in depths of irised wells 
The chrism of the soul indwells, 
That they lustre e'en at night, 
That they echo flitting laughter. 
And disclose suppressed delight. 
And reveal the grief that after 
Bliss o'erclouds the heart contrite. 

There are bards who dare to say 

The eyes betray. 
That their deeps of which men rave. 
Jeweled like Aladdin's cave. 
And their Soul-portraying glance, 
Are but star-struck lover's glamor. 
That they give ho utterance. 
That the swain they so enamor 
Doth but dote as in a trance. 
127 



Round the mouth expressions play 

These bards say. 
That the velvet lips' bowed line 
Is of Soul incarnate sign. 
That the ivoried, orient gleam. 
And the sweetly modeled dimples 
Render moods that make men dream. 
Moods that purl like buoyant wimples 
On the willow-shaded stream. 



128 



FATE 

The breeze was off a-hiding, 

The meadows dressed their best, 
And August gliding, gliding. 
To its September rest. 
The glint was on the current where stranded things 

sighed " Stay," 
And insects sheened midst sun-motes, like stars on 
Milky Way. 

The sun was stately falling 

Upon the molten west. 
Where Earth was calling, calling. 
Her lover to her breast. 
Then strands of light and shadow wove intertissues gay ; 
Then willows arched with graces, like girls of classic 
clay. 



129 



And we were mutely drifting 

In concert with the flow, 
That surely lifting, lifting 
Towards pale surf below 
Things animate and lifeless, that on the surface play ; 
While turtles basked in sunshine, like men in their 
decay. 

And who would say that after. 

There might loom up despair, 
When naught but laughter, laughter. 
Should ring out on the air ? 
Yet whirlpools black, sinister, beneath the mirrors lay. 
And portents cast their umbrage, like Death on bridal- 
day. 



130 



Drear, eerie moods were chilling 

The joyance of the scene, 
And Fate was killing, killing. 
The bliss that might have been ; 
The Sun sank on indifferent to mortal man at bay ; 
But frightened fowl whirled o'er us, like hearts that go 
astray. 



131 



PREMATURITY 



O BIRCH; how soon thou dost disrobe this year ! 
What does it mean 
That thou thine aureate sheen 
Dost prematurely lose, when nothing else is sear ? 

The gleaming phlox doth bloom, and sun-flowers 
glow 

Beneath a sky 
Upon whose bosom lie 
Soft halcyon, August clouds, white as December 
snow. 

O silver, leafless birch ! thou hast not told 
Why on the blue 
Of pure, celestial hue 
Thou spreadest argent limbs, which should be clad in 
gold. 

132 



Pale yellow butterflies imbibe the breath 
That doth exhale 
From the aromatic vale — 
The aura of sweet Life — whilst thou dost savor Death. 

Hath ardentj amorous Sun thy soul's health robbed ? 
And in thy grief 
Hast thou thy gilded sheaf 
Shed like hot, brimming tears, when breezes sad have 
sobbed ? 

Or did some woe-born, weeping, lingering cloud 
O'ertouch thy heart 
And its own rue impart 
Till thou in sympathy didst cast thy leafy shroud ? 

The other trees upon the dappled lawn 
Cast soothing shade. 
As though their leaves were made 
To shield thee when thine own were all too soon 
withdrawn. 

133 



II 

O gentle one, who wast so wondrous fair ! 
O tell us how 
Was scathed thy dawn-like brow ! 
What dole did streak with silver strands thy golden 
hair? 

Hath Love, the Lawless, filched the ruddy flush 
Of thy sweet youth ? 
If thou shouldst speak the truth. 
Would blood incarnadine through thy gray cheeks 
now rush ? 

Or did some ineradicable grief 
Deep thrust its root 
Into thy heart now mute — 
A heart that shed its bloom, as yonder birch its leaf. 



134 



Around thee in thy stress, kind loyal friends 
Stand ever near 
Thine even-tide to cheer, 
And ward whatever ills untoward Fortune sends. 

We know that after months of Winter grim 
The birch once more 
Will bud as oft before : 
But when thou budd'st again 't will be with Seraphim. 



135 



BREEZES 

Over the surf there blows a fresh breeze. 

Salt as the brine, 
A fragrance unique it flings on the leas, 

Elixir divine ! 
Over the meads there floats a warm air 

Of myriad scent,. 
Sweet as the bredes of Flora's fair hair 

With flowerets blent. 
Over a soul there circles a breath 

Laden with love, 
A soul that is wakened only by death. 

Dreaming above. 
Over a life there sweeps a full blast 

Of world's work undone. 
But Love is not there a trammel to cast 

O'er its sands as they run. 



136 



TO ONE AFAR 

The grass is as green in its growing. 
The waters as white on the stream, 
The blossoms as gold in their blowing, 
As ever in bud-time, I deem ; 
Yet thou seemest a shadow of shadows, and I but the 
shade of a dream. 

The elms are as gray in the village. 
And pools as relucently gleam. 

And lowlands as brown in their tillage. 
And skies as transplendently beam ; 
Yet thou art but a shadow of shadows, and I but the 

shade of a dream. 

The willows pale tunics are wearing. 
The gardens with promises teem. 
And everything Life is declaring, 
O Life, O sweet Life, the supreme ! 
But thou seemest a shadow of shadows, and I the 
mere shade of a dream. 
137 



A TRUANT 

I LIE beneath an ample tree — 

Breezes gayly laughing 
At leaflets struggling to be free — 

Freshest air a-quaffing. 

Through crevices of mellow green 
Flakes of gold are streaming 

Adown from skies of violet sheen. 
While I rest half-dreaming. 

The arbor-vitae hedges trim 
Screen from pupils prying 

My dalliance with a lazy whim. 
Fancies gratifying. 

The swarthy-hearted poppies flame, 
Flaunting mid meek grasses, 

But momentary gaze scarce claim — 
Gaze that idly passes 
138 



Farewells 1^1/ 

" Not when the bier descends into the grave " 

See Page 117 



Away from glint of sparkling stream. 
Through ripe meadows flowing, 

To birdling's wings of tints supreme. 
Like the rainbow glowing. 

And now it rests on pregnant cloud. 
Purpling wood-clad mountain. 

Again it flits to opaled shroud. 
Mantling o'er the fountain 

That heartens fainting blooming things 

In the garden growing — 
And some are fine as ermined kings. 

Others scarcely showing. 

How sweet this soothing reverie 
Round my will soft-lurking, 

Enchaining it when I should be 
Profitably working ! 

139 



COUTE QUE COUTE 

Lead thou on with laughter. 
Lead thou on with tears. 
With fearlessness or fears. 

And I will follow after 

Down the chance of years. 

Whatsoe'er thou doest 
That shall be my guide. 
Forever at thy side — 

Whatever thou pursuest — 
I shall aye abide. 

Whether thou be saintly. 
Whether thou be wrong. 
Whether weak or strong, 

I shall never faintly 

Praise thee in my song. 



140 



I shall deck thy kirtle 

With roses like the morn — 

Roses without thorn : 
I shall crown with myrtle. 

Shall with love adorn 

Thy hallowed hair of maiden 

Till it pale with white, 

Till it float with night 
With mysteries deep laden. 

With Death that veils the sight. 



141 



IN HARASSED DAYS 

The season saddens with my heart; 
The clouds upon the hemisphere. 
The leaves upon their earthy bier 

Bespeak its sombre counterpart. 

Alas, the energies that fail. 

The impulse that no more responds 
To listless will, the sundered bonds 

Of stanchest strands — and yet so frail ! 

My Art to me is nothing more 

Than casual chill November breeze. 
Than wanton wavelets on the seas. 

Than shifting sun-strakes on the floor. 

I look upon it from above. 
As oft I gaze upon, and smile, 
Some sweet dead dream that did beguile 

A summer's hour — but still was Love. 
142 



And yet from moods indifferent, 
'Twixt cycles of a living fire, 
'Twixt epochs of a parched desire, 

r 

'Tween flames, alas, that soon were spent ; 

From moods — the ashes of a will 
To procreate some vital thing — 
The embers of a love that spring 

No more to flame at passion's thrill — 

Has blossomed unexpected flower 
More gorgeous from its bitter bed. 
More sweet from acrid tears I shed 

Upon its roots — oh, costly dower ! 

Yes, now perchance, as oft before, 
My soul will luscious fruit again. 
And I may peer the proudest men, 

Or glean a tender heart's full store. 
143 



Perhaps — yet would it were not so, 
For I should rather front kind Death, 
And feel his chill, reposeful breath 
Than rock in anguish to and fro 

From wilding act to unwilled rest, 
A plaything to some full romance, 
A toy to undetermined chance 

That makes or mars in merest jest. 

Perhaps — but should there come to me 

The average interest in life, 

The mediocre aim in strife 
Which guarantees tranquillity. 

What then ? — I know not where to turn, 
Unless, an alien to my home, 
'Mid soothing wonderments I roam. 

And leave behind my ships that burn. 



144 



COLOR SCHEMES 

A WONDERFUL Icsson iti color, I ween. 
This spread peacock's tail of emerald sheen. 
And eyed with great sapphires of heavenly hue ! 
And so is my parrot of yellow and green 
With the least little touch of crimson and blue 1 



10 



145 



1 



TUNEFUL SADNESS 

The half-moon pales upon the orient light 
Above an elm- tree's life-worn leaves decaying — 
Their opulence of russet tints displaying — 
But yet it is not night. 

The sun is burning in the western sky. 
And flames the corn-sheaves in the lowlands standing- 
Their shadows into level lengths expanding — 
And yet the moon is high. 

To radiant gladness my full heart inclines 
Aglow with passion for the deeds worth doing, 
And sweet achievements placid joys ensuing ; 
But yet a pale thought shines. 

The argent pallor of the eastern moon 
Doth discord not with western radiance golden ; 
Nay, silver is to glowing gold beholden 
For this sweet Autumn tune. 



146 



ODE — THY LIGHT, O LORD 



O Thou, who dost in wisdom regulate 
The bourne of all created things, 

Tell us how far 
Upon the lift of individual wings 
We may sustain our flight to propagate 
Our firm beliefs, nor halt to estimate 
The cost ; with Truth — as we behold her — for our 
guide. 
With Universal Kindness at her side — 

A sister-steering star. 

Or, is it that we are 

And ought to be 
Mere fiefmen to Conventionality ? 
Or hast Thou girded us with Reason's brand. 
And armed us with a Conscience-panoply, 

147 



And given us both heart and helping hand 
To wage a holy fight 
For what we deem the right 
E'en though our name dishonored be throughout the 
land? 



148 



II 

We hear the bugle throbbing on the air, 
And see the bale-fires bickering on the height. 
And then we know 
Both blast and glow 
Mean that the startled Patriot must prepare 
To hazard all for Country, wrong or right. 
And slake her stimulated appetite 
For unoffending blood. 
And on the flood 
Of victory wreak murder on a lesser state. 
And hail the slayer with a guerdon laureate, 
And god-proclaiming shout, while leaving to a voice- 
less fate. 

And to a cold neglect 
The unassuming architect 
Of some sweet thing, beneficent and great. 
Wreaths for destroyers ! For those who high create. 
Nothing ! — O God direct ! 

149 



Ill 

Tell us how far, O Lord, 
We who with willing sword 
Would bolt upon the phalanxed foe 
Come to annul what our embattled fathers fiercely won, 
How far we may in strict allegiance go 
Against her will in contest once begun 
Unjustly by our Country, at whose word 
'T were joy to die 
And thenceforth lie 
Among the heroic dead, if she a blow incurred, 
Tell us how far, O Lord ! 



150 



IV 

To us who ever hope to lead mankind 
From out the precincts bhnd 
Of selfish, unfraternal hate, 

Into the candid realms of pure Philanthropy; 

To us who in our sweeter Domesticity 

Respect the blood-related heart. 
And to our words and deeds impart 

A kindliness that manifests a heaven-born grace ; 

To us who for the ideals of an alien race 
Deep reverence feel ; 
Who cannot steel 

Our softer selves to them, because they do not mate 
With our conception of the perfect State ; 
To us Thy light reveal ! 



151 



V 
But if the ideals be those of Tyranny ? 
Tell us how far — 
E'en with the shriek of war 
Resounding horridly along ensanguined ways, 

With miseries ineffable that craze 
The unaccustomed eye — how far for Liberty 
We may adventure to enforce our policy 
On an unwilling state, knowing that to be free 
From a paternal, even lenient monarchy 
Means greater self-respect. 
And freer intellect 
To coin unwelcome words to powers that be — 
Yet words that must be coined persistently. 
In order to perfect 
Our present make-shifts for a stable intercourse, 
When Comity shall break the rule of Force ; 
When all shall act in unison 
The precepts of Thy brother-loving One. 
Direct, O Lord, direct ! 
152 



VI 
The Southern breezes softly sway the leaves, 
Of shimmering osiers clinging to pale streams, 
And grass untrampled with the wild-flowers weaves 
A medieval tapestry. The roadway teems 
With golden winglets swarming in the beams 
Of argent, midday rays. 
It is the hour of man's release 
From noon's too ardent blaze ; 
And everything proclaims a blessed Peace. 
And yet in these calm hours they ne'er surcease 
Our conscience-throes — nay, rather they increase. 



153 



VII 

We who in loyalty would serve the State 
And try to fashion her firm fabric so. 
That every nation, high and low 
Upon Earth's latitudes, would mate 
Her structure, based on Law, and grandly crowned 

With Freedom aureate — 
A perfect thing from wing-tip to the ground. 
Fair shaped, fair colored, beautiful and sound 
In all its parts, and in the whole immaculate — 
We who would build her thus. 
Spotless and glorious. 
Tell us how far 
O Lord, we may oppose the factions that would mar 

This vision marvelous — 
The factions that alone control and shape — 
The factions that in selfishness would bar 
The inspired act, the unwillingness to ape 
The mean and timorous. 
154 



Or is it less 

Impolitic to acquiesce 

In schemes iniquitous. 

Our better purpose to effect 

Within strict party-lines, forever circumspect ? 

O God, direct ! 



155 



VIII 

Would it be well Confusion to invite ? 
If to our keener sight 
The fiats of the Law 
But palely glimmer on a field of Night — 
Like stars that shed an insufiicient light — 
Shall we accept the fatal flaw 
In their light-shedding power, and stumble on our 
way 
When in our Souls illumed there flames a 

bright, 
Sufficing star — the searching star of Day ? 
Or shall we screen 
The splendid sheen 
Of this intense, god-kindled flame 
That we may be^ and act the same 

As unilluminated man. 
That we may pine within his earthly ban. 
That we may live, the servile avatar 

156 



Of mediocrity, throughout a false life's span ? 
Shall we our light conceal ? 
Thy light, O Lord, reveal, 
And let it shine for aye, a beacon secular ! 



157 



FAREWELL, AUTUMN! 

Once more, dear land, I tune my parting song 
To flaming Autumn's richly inwrought lyre ; 
Once more I laud thy sumptuous attire, 
Saffron, and gold, and ruby red. Along 

The glowing hills frown sombre bands of strong. 
Deep green — the spruce and pine — that both 

acquire 
Solemnity, and lend a fiercer fire, 
Like scowlers midst a masquerading throng. 

Aye, oft-times have I sung these gauds before. 
And now again I sing them as I go : 

For who may say what Fate doth hold in store 
For us — brow-bent and frail — ere coming snow 

Shall melt upon the hills beloved, and roar 
In vernal torrents through mild meads below. 



158 



AUG 15 



1902 



AUG 1 6 1902 



I 15 190? 
• t902 



